EURASIAN IMAGES OF SINGAPORE IN THE ... - USQ ePrints

Complete Citation: Wicks, Peter (2002). Eurasian images of Singapore in the fiction of Rex
Shelley. In Mohammed A. Quayum and Peter Wicks (Eds.), Singaporean literature in
English: a critical reader (pp. 377-383). Serdang, Malaysia: Universiti Putra Malaysia Press .
ISBN 983 2373 50 63.
Accessed from USQ ePrints http://eprints.usq.edu.au
EURASIAN IMAGES OF SINGAPORE IN THE FICTION OF REX SHELLEY
Peter Wicks
Associate Professor of Asian Studies
University of Southern Queensland
In a series of four novels, amounting to a substantial personal literary output, the author Rex
Shelley has fashioned a portrait of Singapore that differs significantly from the conventional
ones, both official and literary. Shelley comes from the numerically small Eurasian
community, and it is the distinctive historical experience of this minority, also known
colloquially as mesticos, serani, or geragok, that richly frames his fiction. Yet Shelley’s
achievement is often curiously overlooked in Singaporean literary criticism.
The Singapore of Rex Shelley’s fiction is not primarily the success story of the overseas
Chinese who so quickly became a large and dominant majority of the Singaporean
population, though their economic achievements do form a necessary context for Shelley’s
works. Nor is it a nostalgic vision of Bangsa Melayu as dreamed by generations of once rural
Malays. Nor is it the ravaged evocation of Indian diaspora so eloquently chronicled by K S
Maniam. Rather, Shelley’s attention is upon the very human consequences of Western
colonialism in Southeast Asia, namely the products of unions, legitimate or otherwise,
between European males and local females. As Shelley told Ronald Klein in a recent
interview “, I wanted to put down some record of the social history of this Eurasian minority
community.” (1) The result is an impressive, if structurally flawed, portrait of vivid integrity
amongst Singapore’s Eurasian community over time. As personified by the characters in the
four novels, Shelley’s Eurasians are not marginal, post-colonial oddities, but an engaging,
multi-dimensional community who laugh, cry, work, play, dream, struggle, gossip, and
intrigue, just like any other. They may not be Malay, Chinese, Indian, European, or Arab, but
they are involved, patriotic participants in the shaping of Singapore nonetheless.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rex Shelley was born in neighbouring Malaysia in 1930 of English, Portuguese, Malay and
Buginese descent. His father was a shipyard worker and his mother a schoolteacher. He
attended St Anthony’s Catholic School in Singapore before the Pacific War, and then a
Japanese language school for a year during the wartime Occupation. His first job was as a
carpenter’s apprentice in a shipyard. After the Pacific War, he attended Raffles College,
where he studied Chemistry on a scholarship, and then went to Britain to study Engineering,
where he briefly became involved in leftist student politics. After graduation from Cambridge
University, he returned to Singapore and established a company that imported engineering
equipment. He then worked for many years as a civil servant, and achieved senior positions
in the Public Service and Education Service Commissions. Now in retirement, he still
operates a trading business, and began serious creative writing in his sixties, publishing his
first novel at the age of 61. His other enthusiasms are music, fabric-painting, swimming, and
reading. Shelley identifies the dominant literary influences upon himself as Charles Dickens,
John Steinbeck, Joseph Conrad and, to a lesser extent, Ernest Hemingway. (2) In his literary
work, he certainly exhibits a fascination with intrigue and espionage.
THE FIRST NOVEL
Shelley’s first novel, simply titled The Shrimp People, was published by Times Books
International in 1991 to much local literary acclaim, including a prestigious award from the
National Book Development Council of Singapore in 1992. Its Prologue evokes, in
mythological terms, the birth of the first Eurasian in regional history after a Portuguese sailor
meets up with a Malay woman on the beaches of Malacca so many centuries ago.
The vantage point of the novel then abruptly shifts to a group of Eurasian ‘old hands’ who,
since independence, have migrated from Singapore to Perth in Western Australia. It is their
meeting at the public bar of a hotel, and their alcohol-lubricated reminiscences, that provide
the trigger for the narrative. Their dialogue and demeanour suggest more confidence in their
past than in what is to come. They are more definite and assured about their historical
experiences in Singapore and British Malaya than about a future in which they seemed
destined to be swallowed up rather anonymously into Australia’s middle-class, outer
suburbia.
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But there is nothing anonymous about the dynamic tapestry of historical characters that
constitute the Eurasian community of Singapore in mid-twentieth century and whose lives are
narrated in the pages of Rex Shelley’s first novel. Names such as Machado, Gonzales,
Cornelius, Perera, Pinto, Tessensohn, Kraal, Oliveiro, Consigliere, Eber, Delikan, and
Westerhout dot the pages of the text. Such names figured in such dramatic events as the
wartime Japanese Occupation, Maria Hertogh Riots, the Chinese High School Riots (1953),
the Hock Lee Bus Riots (1955), Merdeka, and Confrontation. What Patricia Wong calls ‘‘a
litany of names” furnishes a “registry of Eurasian society, primarily the Eurasian society in
Singapore” and is integral to a sense of Eurasian identity, since it “serves both to situate one
within one’s community and to remind one of the past.” (3) There is nothing random about
authorial purpose here. As Rex Shelley recalls, “…I think, at the back of my mind, I wanted
to put down some record of the social history of this minority Eurasian community. I think
this community is going to disappear; it is too small to survive.”(4)
Shelley selects one particular Eurasian group in Singapore as the prism for his narrative, the
Rodrigues family, especially James the dutiful father and police inspector, and his vivacious,
beautiful, younger daughter, Bertha, about whom the ‘old hands’ in Perth so love to gossip.
Primarily, it is the character of Bertha, with her adolescent rebelliousness, her skills on the
hockey field, her romantic escapades, her rivalry with the talented Sheila Cornelius, and her
inherent sense of life’s possibilities, who sustains the text. The author skilfully imparts to the
character of Bertha Rodrigues a vitality and sense of purpose that strikingly contrasts with the
perception of a Eurasian community widely held to be doomed.
Had Shelley stayed with the Rodrigues family and their experiences, his novel would have
possessed a satisfying coherence as historical fiction, as what Patricia Wong terms “a family
and community saga” (5) and as a document of cultural knowledge. But mid-way through
The Shrimp People, the narrative turns to a melodramatic spy-thriller, with Bertha
improbably cast as a kind of Mata-Hari figure who covertly works for Indonesia against
Malaysia during the period of Confrontation. In fact, in a rather melodramatic episode, Bertha
shoots and kills a fellow Eurasian agent, Andy McKay, because of his pro-communist
sympathies. The reasons for this shift in plot are difficult to fathom. Perhaps Shelley’s editors
or publishers felt that this shift of genre would improve the book’s commercial viability and
persuaded the author accordingly. Better advice would have been to leave well alone, or
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make two different texts altogether. As it is, Bertha’s motivation for espionage and terrorism
is only thinly documented, other than a vaguely articulated sense of Singaporean patriotism
against Malaysia that she had once displayed on the hockey-field.
Although it attracted prestigious Singaporean literary award, local critical reaction to The
Shrimp People was decidedly mixed. Dudley de Souza praised the novel’s vitality, historical
authenticity, idiomatic flair, and ‘tremendous scope” (6) whilst acknowledging that the
novel’s “lack of a tightly-knit plot”(7). For her part, Patricia Wong can only find “the
makings of a sweeping novel” (8) here, because she thinks the work loses its sense of purpose
and direction mid-way through. According to Wong, The Shrimp People also suffers from
structural disjointedness, excessive temporal shifts and an unnecessary and distracting array
of minor characters. (9)
Yet, despite these acknowledged flaws, Shelley’s intimacy with his community is pervasive,
profound and to some extent, redemptive. He is able to demonstrate that massive prejudice
haunted the Eurasians both from without and within their community. Thus Eurasian mothers
preferred their sons and daughters to marry other Eurasians, and those of the same Christian
denomination. However, one social avenue available to all youthful Eurasians was the
sportsground, with tennis, cricket, and hockey among the favoured pursuits. Rex Shelley is at
his narrative best when describing the hockey matches in which both Bertha Rodrigues and
Sheelah Cornelius starred.
THE SECOND NOVEL
People of the Pear Tree, Shelley’s second novel, appeared in 1993, and continued to
confronted the issue of Eurasian identity full-on. In the first chapter, a prologue set in
Malacca during the mid-17 th century, a young Eurasian called Augustin Perera expressed
disquiet when he hears an old Chinese acquaintance in Malacca, Ah Foo, openly expressed
affection for China as “my place”. (10) Augustine, it is said, “frowned as he thought of all
that talk about China,” and ‘couldn’t understand why she wanted to go back there.” (11). Yet
Father Futado, the Catholic priest, tells Augustine Perera when they meet on the beach that he
can equably call both Malaya and Portugal as ‘home’.
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But the main people of the pear tree in this novel are Augustine’s descendants, the Perera
family of 20th century Singapore. Their place is Singapore and Malaya under Japanese
Occupation from 1942-1945. A romantic interest is furnished by the personal relationship
between Major Takanashi and the beautiful Eurasian, Anna Perera, and the decision of the
many members of the Eurasian community, uncomfortable with Japanese rule, to move upcountry
from Singapore to Bahau, a rural enclave on the Malay Peninsula. Harsh military
occupation by Japan had laid bare the essential Eurasian dilemma of rootlessness. ‘You
know,” said Joe Perera wistfully, “We have no country. We are only a few and we have no
place to call our own.” (12)
For the Perera family, Bahau on the Malay Peninsula turned out to be barely that. Bahau may
not have been wartime Singapore with its miserable rations of rice, but it still turned out to be
a malaria-infested, poorly-soiled, Japanese-patrolled reserve, complete with road-blocks, iron
gates, and armed sentries. There the urbane Perera family must learn to farm vegetables.
They also link up with a Chinese guerilla company of the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese
Army, and agree to provide them with some regular supplies of the food from their small
plot. One family member, Gus Perera, goes into a jungle training operation with his new
friends in the MPAJA, and the group successfully ambush a Japanese military convoy. Just
like his descriptions of the games of hockey in The Shrimp People, Shelley captures the
atmosphere of battle quite vividly. But in guerilla warfare, of course, the stakes are much
higher. One of the communist terrorists, the woman, Ah Lan, is captured by the Japanese and
deliberately and brutally shot by Anna Perera’s admirer, Major Takanashi.. The Allied
counterpart to Major Takanashi is Major John Pearson, a British officer from guerilla Force
136, which operates alongside the MPAJA. Pearson is also attracted to Anna.
In an especially poignant and lyrical passage, the Pereras attend Midnight Mass on Christmas
Eve at the small, wooden Catholic Church in Bahau, filling the building with their singing of
Gloria in Excelsis Deo. They then go on to the New Year’s Eve party, where everyone drank
samsu, and despite a continuing Japanese presence, greeted 1945 with a hearty rendition of
There’ll Always be an England. Well, perhaps for an older generation of Eurasians. Back in
the jungle, Gus Perera had vigorously challenged the assumption by members of the MPAJA
that Eurasians had a special insight into European culture just because they are, in part, of
European descent, but as the shrewd, earthy guerilla fighter, Mrs Foo, tells Gus Perera back
in the jungle, “You are too few to have your own country…”(13) Shelley reflected in a
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ecent interview, after 1945 “… I think the majority of Eurasians had a problem. They
wanted to be independent but they were pro-British.” (14)
However, in People of the Pear Tree, the simmering conflict between Major Takanashi and
Major Pearson over Anna Perera’s affections is resolved in an episode of hand-to-hand
conflict towards the end of the novel. Pearson is killed, and the Epilogue almost incidentally
reveals that Anna subsequently married Major Takanashi. It is clear that the future for at least
one young Eurasian woman lies in Japan, rather than England.
THE THIRD NOVEL
In 1995, Times Books International brought out Rex Shelley’s third novel, Island in the
Centre. This novel also evokes a nascent affinity between the Eurasian orphans of the raj and
Japan. Set in the 1930s, Island in the Centre opens with a couple of Eurasian sailors
on voyage from Singapore to Nagasaki. Then the vantage point of the novel shifts to the
beautiful, rebellious Japanese woman, Yuriko Sasakawa, who decides to seek her fortune
overseas as a prostitute, and to a Japanese engineer, Tommy Nakajima, who works on a
rubber plantation at Kluang on the Malay Peninsula. Tommy records his impressions of
people and events in a personal diary. For a long while, the main action takes place in the red
light district of Singapore during the 1920s. Then, at the onset of Depression, Tommy loses
his job at the rubber estate, but is recruited by the Japanese Consul-General in Singapore for
work as a commercial spy. He undertakes an affair with a beautiful Eurasian businesswoman,
Vicky Viera, which prompts a mutual evaluation of the respective cultural traits of Japanese
and Eurasians. Tommy and Vicki’s plans for marriage are, however, thwarted by the
Japanese bombardment and military occupation of Malaya in December, 1941. As Vicky
observes from the road to Butterworth Air Base, “It was an experience she had never
imagined she would ever have or a scene she could ever witness. Seeing a battle from so
close ..”(15) British imperial aspirations were far from the only casualty of Japanese
Occupation.
THE FOURTH NOVEL
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Times Books International issued the fourth of Rex Shelley’s novels on the Eurasians of
Singapore in 1998. Entitled River of Roses, the novel centres on four generations of the
extended Rosario family. The narrative contains plenty of acute, apt, economical
characterisation, vivid descriptions of culinary delights, and earthy, witty repartee.
Portuguese culture and the icons and rituals of Roman Catholicism, as well as the Malayan
landscape, furnish the context of this fourth work, far more than the previous three. The
author discusses the historic (and historical) decision of the Rosary family patriarch, Alfonso,
to adopt an ethnically Indian waif-boy and convert him to Christianity under the new name of
Ramalho. Through the character of Padre Rocha, the author waxes lyrical over the ‘utterly
beautiful” island of Penang (16), incidentally an opinion by no means confined to Rex
Shelley. The text also includes ample predictions of human nature based on astrology,
numerology and divination. Descriptions of soccer games in Malacca again lead inexorably
to the conclusion that if Shelley had not turned his hand to fiction, he would have made a
superb sports reporter. In the character of Tony Rosario, Alfonso’s son, Shelley has fashioned
another rounded, plausible Eurasian person, a skilled engineer with a public service job,
talented, ambitious and lusty, who falls in love with a woman not his wife, the Chinese Mimi
Tan. Mimi in turn bears him a daughter whom he never meets due to the Japanese Military
Occupation of Malaya and Singapore in December, 1941. The doomed romance between
Tony and Mimi has a special poignancy.
The story then jumps to Alfred Rosario’s grand-daughter, Philipppa, her same-sex
relationship with Vicky, and the return of the British forces to Singapore in September, 1945.
Philippa falls passionately in love with a Malay musician, Daud bin Ibrahim, but is torn
between Daud, the Muslim Malay and Duncan Gudgeon, the British agent, both of whom tap
into her nationalist sentiments. However, the deep cultural differences between Muslim
Malay and Catholic Eurasian rear up between Philippa and Daud. Believing that Philippa
prefers Duncan, Daud commits suicide through electrocution. As Singapore moves through
the Emergency to Merger with Malaysia to abrupt Independence as a city-state, Philipppa
Rosario is seconded to teach at a new Junior College, and meets up with the younger
generation of the Rosario family as they deal with demands such as National service.
Although he again furnishes Philippa Rosario with the blond hair, fair skin, and voluptuous
body of a classic Eurasian beauty, Shelley gives to this female character rather more breadth
and depth than he did with Bertha Rodrigues. On his predeliction for female characterisation,
Rex Shelley has observed:
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“I think in my generation and my father’s generation, there were some very strong
Eurasian women who stood out. In those days, with the hangover of the British
Victorian times, a woman did not show herself; she behaved like a Jane
Austen character. But in the Eurasian community compared to the British
Colonial society, the Victorian repression of the female wasn’t so strong, so
there were many more strong female personalities.” (17)
In the fictional persona of Bertha Rodrigues, Vicky Viera, and Philippa Rosario, Rex Shelley
has been conspicuously faithful to earlier generations of Eurasian women.
Despite his historical framework, Shelley’s dominant structure is episodic rather than linear.
His texts jump around in time and place. Stylistically, he makes extensive use of flashback,
which can produce a disruptive effect on the reader.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
In stylistic terms, Shelley’s four novels contain some bizarre twists of plot and unevenness of
characterisation. Yet they also possess dramatic effect and historical value, and in particular
suggest the following about the Eurasian community of Singapore (and to a lesser extent, of
neighbouring Malaysia):
- Eurasians experience profound ethnic ambiguity, but were generally loyal to Britain while
the raj was east of Suez. Proud of their past, they are uncertain and uneasy about their
future;
- Eurasians are not mere European derivatives;
- Although Eurasians may not conform to conventional ethnic categories, their humanity
cannot be denied, and they can even be physically attractive;
- The maritime Malay and Portuguese heritage of the Eurasians gives them historical depth
and a kind of epic grandeur;
- Eurasians can be dynamic and effective social participants;
- Just like other ethnic communities, Eurasians have been torn by contrary impulses, such
as ideology, political affiliation, national loyalty, and site of long-term residence;
- Many Eurasians have made identifiable and constructive contributions to the modern
political history of their countries of birth especially, in this case, to Singapore.
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Herein lies Rex Shelley’s fictional achievement.
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NOTES
1. “Rex Shelley.” Interlogue: Studies in Singapore Literature Volume 4: Interviews, ed.
Ronald D. Klein. Singapore: Ethos Books, 2001, p. 44.
2. Ibid., p. 45.
3. Wong, Patricia. “Rex Shelley’s The Shrimp People: What Manner of Beast is it?”
Interlogue: Studies in Singapore Literature Volume 1: Fiction, ed. Kirpal Singh.
Singapore: Ethos Books, 1998, p. 49.
4. “Rex Shelley.” Interlogue Volume 4, p. 44.
5. Wong, “Rex Shelley’s The Shrimp People”, p. 48.
6. De Souza, Dudley. “Singapore.” Traveller’s Literary Companion to South-East Asia, ed.
Alistair Dingwell. Brighton, U.K.: InPrint, 1994, p. 290.
7. Ibid., p. 258.
8. Wong, “Rex Shelley’s The Shrimp People”, p. 50.
9. Ibid.
10. Shelley, Rex. People of the Pear Tree. Singapore: Times Books International, 1993, p. 9.
11. Ibid., p. 10.
12. Ibid., p. 74.
13. Ibid., p. 208.
14. “Rex Shelley.” Interlogue Volume 4, p. 47.
15. Shelley, Rex. Island in the Centre. Singapore: Times Books International, 1995, p. 169.
16. Shelley, Rex. River of Roses. Singapore: Times Books international, 1998, p. 58.
17. “Rex Shelley.” Interlogue Volume 4, p. 51.
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